Thursday, June 14, 2012

When Murray State Coach Steve Prohm took the court in Louisville and looked across the court at Marquette warming up, the first words
out of his mouth were reportedly, “Aren’t those guys missing spring practice somewhere?”

In 14 days, Darius Johnson-Odom and Jae Crowder hope to hear
their names called at the NBA Draft despite reservations about their height,
and my guess is one of the thank yous will go to Marquette Head Strength and
Conditioning Coach Todd Smith.

Jae Crowder was not only the strongest guy at the NBA
combine with 20 reps of 185-pounds on the bench, but that total was just less
than the average of all NFL combine players (21).

Darius Johnson-Odom was one of only four prospects with a
vertical of at least 41 inches this year – the other three have already signed
with the Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Texans and New York Giants. Of the 300 prospects to participate in either
the NFL or NBA combine, here are the only seven to top 40 inches.

Player

Top verticals

Will play for …

Kashif Moore

43.5

Cincinnati Bengals

Darius Johnson-Odom

41.5

Portland Trail Blazers?

Jerrell Jackson

41

Houston Texas

David Wilson

41

New York Giants

Chris Owusu

40.5

San Francisco 49ers

Marquis Teague

40.5

Miles Plumlee

40.5

Portland Trail Blazers invite DJO to join lottery picks

How high could DJOs stock be rising after such an impressive
display? He already went from not even
being invited to Portsmouth to being invited to the combine itself, and has
been the fastest rising player even in www.nbadraft.net,
which has left Crowder and DJO out of the draft until recently adding the
latter.

We are now in the phase of the final weeks where GMs and
Scouts don’t want any other team to know who is rising through their ranks. We now know that more than one team was
hoping that Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler would stop looking so good so that
they wouldn’t be gone by their choice.
We have no way of knowing whether that is happening to DJO, Crowder or
neither this year.

However, one very encouraging sign for DJO was a surprise
invite from Wesley Matthews Portland Trail Blazers. Portland has the wonderful fortune of having
6th, 11th, 40th and 41st picks in
what is a very deep draft. They chose to
invite two groups of 6 players each to a team tryout to look at players for
these spots. One group was reportedly
of potential lottery picks, while the other was reportedly of long-shots that
seemed more likely heading for camp as undrafted players, but who they
apparently saw something about that intrigued them. The interesting thing is that when word
leaked out about the two groups, DJO was in the group with potential lottery
picks, while Kevin Murphy of Tennessee Tech, expected to go higher than DJO,
was in the B-group.

It would seem a stretch to believe that DJO is being
considered for the 11th pick, BUT with the potential of teams
trading up, you can’t help but looking at the two groups and where www.draftexpress.com ranks each player,
and conclude it is almost as hard to believe that the teams still have DJO as low
as the public draft boards do.

Trail Blazers Group B

Trail Blazers Group A

Kevin Murphy, Tenn Tech 40th

Jared Sullinger, OSU 7th

John Shurna, NW 73rd

Perry Jones, Bay 8th

Mitchell Watt, Buffalo 74th

Terrence Jones, Kentucky 9th

Quincy Acy, Baylor 80th

John Henson, UNC 11th

Reggie Hamilton, Oak 95th

Marquis Teague, Kent 22nd

Bradford Burgess, VCU NR

Darius Johnson-Odom, MU 47th

Could Marquette possibly have a third straight year with a
stunning first round pick? Not that
Wesley Matthews was crying over not getting picked when he cashed $9 million in
checks his second year out of Marquette, but it’s quite possible the strong
combine performances of Crowder and DJO could have some teams considering them
earlier.